#265: How to Use ChatGPT in Your Law Practice

How to Use ChatGPT in Your Law Practice

Hello my friend. How are you doing today? Today we're gonna do a super fun episode. We're talking about how to use ChatGPT in your law practice.

There are a lot of beneficial ways you can use ChatGPT in your law practice to make your life easier. We're gonna talk about everything from creating content to generate leads, to systematizing your practice, to doing things that you may not even know you can do with it yet. So I wanna share these things with you.

We're also gonna be talking about some of the problems with ChatGPT that you need to be aware of before you use it in your law practice.

Now, we're not gonna be talking about artificial intelligence in general in this episode, but there are some things that you need to be aware of about ai. It does not have generally amazing implications for our society. When you really start looking at it, it is highly unlikely that it is going to be regulated by the United States based on the history that it has of not regulating tech industries.

So just understand that this could be a problem and I don't see that European regulations are going to really impact the growth and expansion of AI. There have already been tech leaders that are coming out warning about not regulating AI right now, but those calls are not being heeded and it's something that, for each of our industries, it's important to be aware of because it is going to have far reaching consequences if it is not reigned in.

But for purposes of this episode, we're gonna be talking about a segment of AI called ChatGPT, which is a beautiful tool.

It is really fun and I'm gonna show you how to use ChatGPT in a way that is beneficial for you and your law practice.

And we're gonna do this a little bit differently than usual. I'm gonna be sharing with you a slideshow that is going to walk you step by step through how to use ChatGPT. So as I walk you through this show, if you're listening to this episode on a podcast, it's okay. I'm gonna be walking you through this so clearly, so succinctly that you will not need the slides. But if you love having the visual, you can go to dinacataldo.com/265 and you can watch the video there and you're gonna get this beautiful simple slideshow that I created for this episode.

So without further ado, let's talk about how to use ChatGPT in your law practice.

There is one ChatGPT that I am using that is the one that everybody is talking about, and I'm gonna link to that in the show notes. The reason I'm linking to it is because if you go to Google and you type in ChatGPT, you're going to get a plethora of options and you don't need all of them <laugh> and they can get confusing. This is the simplest one. I've tried different ones. This one's super easy to use. I would use this one. There are also legal ChatGPT type programs out there. I'm not going to talk about those here, but those are ones that you would want if you were actually going to be citing case law, you do not want to use ChatGPT for citing case law.

We're gonna talk more about that in a little bit. When you go to this front page, it is gonna give you examples of questions that you can ask it. I will be sharing with you questions that you can start asking it to make your life easier, especially if you're a brand new attorney. I think it's gonna be fun.

Or if you're generating content on a regular basis. Another thing to remember is that it has limitations. It is going to occasionally generate incorrect information. It can occasionally, this is in ChatGPT's words produce harmful instruction or biased content, and it has limited knowledge of world and events after 2021. One of the cool things about chat G P t though is that it's like having a conversation with someone. And so if you go into ChatGPT and you um, are typing a message and it spits out an answer, right?

You ask it a question, it gives you an answer, you can ask it clarifying questions, you can ask it to expand upon what it just said.

You can ask it to be more concise, you can ask it very simple questions and it will give you very complex answers. It's really pretty amazing.

Using ChatGPT for Business Development in Your Law Practice

Now let's talk about one of the implications that is the most fun. I think it's creating content to drive leads to your practice. And I've talked about business development in this podcast before. I will link to uh, one of the episodes that I did in the show notes. But when you're talking about creating content, and especially if you're doing it the way I think you're supposed to do it, which is you do it every week, you do it consistently, you do it every other week, whatever it is, if you are creating consistent content, sometimes your brain freezes.

It's like, oh my gosh, like I just don't even know what to say. So this ChatGPTallows you to create blogs, podcast content presentations, eBooks, all of those things, giving you ideas that you can work from. So there's no such thing as writer's block. I really don't believe that. But if you do, you can go into ChatGPT and you can ask it a question <laugh>.

All right, so I went in and I did some questions from the perspective of different clients that I have, so that if you're a client and you're listening to this, you will have some ideas that you can use for your particular practice. But you can use this for any practice that you have. Just think about what some fun ideas would be if you're going in to create blog content, something that your ideal client would wanna hear.

ChatGPT and Arnold Schwarzenegger

And this particular question that I asked ChatGPT was write a top 10 list of advice to Arnold Schwarzenegger from the perspective of an estate planning attorney. I thought that would be super fun as a reader. Arnold Schwarzenegger is in the news a lot right now. I mean, he's always been in the media, but right now he has a lot of projects going on. And so to write something that's in current events and to really kind of bring in your readers who are interested in current events and also are interested in learning more about estate planning and what they may need to do might be a fun article to write. So it just gives me a, the top 10 pieces of pieces of advice an estate planning attorney should give Arnold Schwarzenegger. And it lists everything from starting a estate plan to planning for incapacity, considering a living trust.

Like those kinds of topics are topics that are now in the top of your mind. You don't have to even think ChatGPT has such amazing use for people creating content because it lessens the requirement of thinking so hard, <laugh> on creating content.

A Word of Warning When Using ChatGPT for Business Development

Now here's where you want to watch out. You want to make sure that the content that you're creating is in your voice. So chat chip PT is not something where you just wanna copy and paste what it gives you. You wanna look at it with a critical eye first of all. And second of all, you always want the copy to be in your voice. You want the words to be in your voice. Your clients are not attracted to you because they're looking for chat G P T to spit out information they're attracted to you because of your ideas, your energy that you're putting out into the world.

And so if you are interested in this topic and you think it would be a fun topic for your uh, newsletter people to read about, this is such a fun blog that you can create. So just know that they want you, they don't want a list from ChatGPT your your people want you. So don't deny that to them, right?

ChatGPT and OPt-In Content for Potential Clients

And then another idea I had was an idea for an ebook and creating an ebook so that you could have it on your website or you could have it on a Facebook ad and require an email to access it. So somebody's going through scrolling, find your website and they're like, oh wow, this is really interesting. I'd like to learn more. And then they click on it and then they have to enter their email address to unlock it and then you have the ability to follow up with them after that they've unlocked that content.

So my idea here was outline an ebook for a person who's been involved in an accident as an and is considering hiring a personal injury attorney. What do they need to consider when hiring one? And I put that question right into chat G P T and they spit out this amazing outline of a book <laugh>. So you can go through and you just start pulling out things that you wanna include, like the importance of hiring a personal injury attorney. The definitions you need to be aware of statutes of limitations and filing deadlines. You need to know, uh, importance of gathering evidence, how to gather evidence, like really start to get into chat G P T just to get these ideas out. And then you're not wasting precious energy thinking up this on your own and reinventing the wheel, it's all there for you.

It doesn't mean you don't have your own ideas and that you don't incorporate them. It's just a great starting place. One of the things that I will caution you about is that it chat. G p t is not a marketer. So it does not have the ability to understand social cues. So in this particular instance, the title for this ebook that they provided me was navigating Personal Injury Claims, a comprehensive guide to Hiring the Right Attorney That is the most boring title in the history of the world. I would at least spice it up to say something like the top 10 things you need to know before you hire a personal injury attorney or what you need to know before you talk to your personal injury attorney. Something like that. So that it is very direct, it is very short. This is what you want to help you just generate the ideas so that you can then create the content in your voice.

ChatGPT for Presentations

The next segment of people building their business that I was thinking about were those who are creating presentations and going to companies and talking about the implications of new ideas in the industry. So what I did is I just typed into chat G P T, what are the implications of AI on the pharmaceutical industry? And again, it gave me a ton of ideas and they are ideas that I can then take and start to look for support for. I wanna look for our articles that are saying these things. I wanna have citations because I don't wanna completely rely upon ChatGPT for my information. But what it does do is it starts outlining things and letting you know that yes, there are implications and there are aspects of drug discovery, development, manufacturing, patient care, and it goes on and on. So you want to just use this as your starting point for creating something even better.

How to Use ChatGPT for Day-to-Day Tasks in Your Law Practice

The next area I wanna talk to you about ChatGPT in your law practice is using ChatGPT when you want help brainstorming.

So for example, when you're thinking about doing things in your practice, like onboarding an employee or when you wanna hear other perspectives on a case. And what I was thinking about in particular here is the implications that it's going to have for solo practitioners who don't have anybody that they are connected with that they can talk to about issues just to give them some ideas. I'm not saying don't start looking for a more experienced attorney so that you can begin brainstorming with them, but it is a place to start. I also think it's a great start for newer lawyers.

We're gonna talk more about how to use it for, for younger lawyers especially who don't really have the confidence yet to feel like they know what they're doing and they're afraid to ask questions because they think they're missing something.

They can use ChatGPT to begin asking questions and start getting some answers and starting to do their own research because they know their case better than anyone else and seeing if those issues apply. And then because they've used ChatGPT, they have a little bit more confidence before they go ask questions. So I think that there are some benefits to it and those are a few that I see here. Uh, so let's talk about that first area, like really using this in areas of your practice. That might be something you don't think about all the time.

One question I asked it is, how would you onboard a remote paralegal employee? And it gave me some considerations: Technology set up and it and it explains further what to think about in terms of technology set up orientation and training, communication channels, document management.

And it just gave me a list with some more details so that I can begin thinking about what exactly do I want to begin thinking about and putting down on paper to help a remote paralegal employee start to be onboarded into my practice.

ChatGPT for Drafting Documents in Your Law Practice

It's also really great if you want to draft a document, draft a demand letter, you can literally just ask it like I did here, draft a letter onboarding a new client in an estate administration matter from my office, a, B, C estate planning. And it is just so mind boggling. I've seen an example of, um, a demand letter being crafted with the details of the demand, like a personal injury case in which, uh, a person had x, y, Z injury and had, uh, amounts of claims for damage to vehicle in this amount for bodily injury, in this amount for property damage in this amount.

Like just seeing how that was all laid out, ChatGPT then took that information and crafted a demand letter with those details. Imagine how much time you would save yourself. Just imagine it's amazing. Again, go back in, make sure that you read it, that you edit it, that you change it around the way it needs to be changed around, but know that it is available to you. And especially for those younger attorneys, when I entered into ChatGPT, this request to draft a letter for this estate administration matter, it came back with a very human tone letter. It was very much a welcoming letter to a new client and then it went on to really write a list of all of the things that I was gonna need for them if I needed to administer this estate plan. So just know this is available to you and it's pretty amazing.

ChatGPT for Those Moment You Don't Know What to Say

Again, another really great aspect of ChatGPT is helping us with things that we may not be able to think through clearly in the moment. So for instance, and I saw an example like this given in a Cleo training on chat G P T, but in that training, uh, they talked about Yelp reviews and responding to Yelp reviews that if you have a negative one, and I was thinking about this in context of mindset because I'm a mindset coach who also uses strategy. So what I was thinking about is when you get a bad review, when somebody says something about your office, we take it very personally and we can feel panic in that moment. Maybe shame.

And when we feel shame, we don't wanna take action. And so we might either ignore the review and not respond to it cuz we feel so horrible or we respond to it, but we do it in a very reactive way that is not very kind and it is not very understanding and you'll know what I mean.

If you've ever read, read those response to reviews and you're like, whoa, I'm that, that person was having a hard day. So know that this is a great tool when you feel that incapacity to act and you don't know what to say because you simply can't think clearly, you can think the thought, huh, I wonder what chat g p t might be able to do <laugh>. And when you do that, you you'll just change your way of feeling about it and you'll get curious about, okay, let's see what chat sheet p t spits out. Like I don't even need to think about this right now. Let me just go into chat G P T. So let me show you what I did. I entered a review that I picked at random and I asked it, I said respond to this Yelp review colon and then the review.

I typed in the words of the review, I inquired about a personal injury case and held up my end to update this office. I left messages with zero follow up. And if you weren't interested in taking the case, just say that instead of wasting my time and chat, g p t gave me this beautifully crafted response saying Thank you for sharing your experience with us. We sincerely apologize, yada yada yada. And it goes on to say, you know, we would really much like the uh, the opportunity to rectify the situation and, and address your concerns and so on and so forth. Now it's a beautiful letter, but now even if you were in a panic and you were and you felt horrible, you could come to this letter and you could go in and you could say, okay, I am gonna just use this letter and I'm gonna read through it and see what I think about it.

You don't even need to hit send, okay? You just sit with it until you feel really good about it and then you can respond to it. But just use this as a starting point for yourself and then tweak the language and make it sound like it comes from you because this is going to help in those times when you're just at a total loss. I thought this was a really great example of how ChatGPTcan be beneficial for those moments. And for the new attorneys who are listening to this and wanna know how you can use ChatGPT in your day-to-day practice, it can help you gain more confidence. I typed in a couple examples just questions to see what it would come up with. One of the questions I asked it are, what are the top 10 most important clauses to consider in a mergers and acquisitions contract?

And it went ahead and it spit out all of these different things, purchase price representations and warranties, conditions, precedent. Uh, you really start to get some ideas generated here. And if you're a brand new attorney who's questioning if you have the conditions that you need in there, this might be a way to begin building that confidence.

Word of Warning to New Attorneys Using ChatGPT

Again, big caveat as a new attorney, you are gonna miss a lot and that's just, that's just what's gonna happen. You're just gonna miss a lot because it's a big learning curve no matter what industry you're involved in, when you're involved in mergers and acquisitions, it's even bigger I imagine, because there's just so much to know. You always wanna talk to a more experienced attorney. But for the newer attorneys who are like afraid that they're missing something really basic, you can go in and you can get some answers and then you can go to your higher level and feel a little bit more confident that you have actually checked off some boxes and that you haven't missed something basic like purchase price.

So just know that it is available to you, but it is not the be all end all. Another thing I would've loved to have had when I was a criminal prosecutor when I was first starting out would've been the ability to ask ChatGPT a question like this, what are the arguments a defense would have in a case where the, the facts are these one defendant seen walking away from liquor store with beer in his hands. Two, an eyewitness can see his face. Three, it's nighttime and there are no lights in the street. Four, there is no video. Five, there is a picture of defendant inside the store. Six, there are three other people in the store. I just put this in for fun. Obviously if you're in the criminal defense or prosecution worlds, you know that facts are much more complex than this.

There's a lot more to consider. But I thought this would be super fun to see what would come up because as a prosecutor I was really scared as a young baby attorney to ask a higher up, Hey, I don't know why this case is going to trial. Like it just seemed so basic to me. Instead, I could ask myself and take personal responsibility and use chat g p t and ask it a question like this and see what it came up with.

And of course it gave me some directions, right? Lack of direct evidence, mistaken identity could be a defense chain of custody issues, limited evidence. So those are different considerations that I could then start thinking about as a young attorney that maybe I wouldn't have thought of. Maybe I wouldn't have thought of chain of custody issues and then I could go back to the file and I could see whether or not maybe there was a chain of custody issue, and that's why the defense was bringing a motion.

I don't know about you, but when I was a brand new attorney and all the defense attorneys I was working with were brand new, everybody was really hesitant to share information. Nobody wanted to talk about why a case was set for trial. Nobody wanted to talk about why there was a motion to suppress evidence being filed. It was just all really hiding the ball at all times. And it was really frustrating because it, it really made no sense from the perspective of a just justice issue and in terms of a time management issue. But that is just the games that I saw played, um, when I was a younger attorney and I just, it was very frustrating. But what I could have done with this kind of technology available is start to just see whether or not there were some things that I hadn't considered and then go to the file again for further investigation.

Do NOT Use ChatGPT in a Vacuum

Because you do not wanna use ChatGPT in a vacuum. You know your case file better than anyone else. It's up to you to really use the information responsibly and not simply use ChatGPT as your checklist of things to look for. Once you have done that, then you wanna talk to a more seasoned attorney and get their take on it. But chat g p t is a great starting place. Alright, I, and I know I'm stressing that a lot in this episode, but I really wanna make sure no matter what level attorney you are, that you understand that ChatGPT does not replace the attorney. It does not replace your brain, it does not replace experience. It is simply a starting place to brainstorm.

The Problems with ChatGPT and Using it in Your Law Practice

There are also some major problems, problems with ChatGPT using it in your law practice.

So I want to cover those. These are the ones that I see and I'm gonna talk about some, some more.

Do NOT use ChatGPT for Case Law

So the first one that I see is that you simply cannot trust the case law. There have been multiple reports of its citing cases that do not exist, right? You do not want to use the case law that it offers at all. A law firm was recently scolded and fined by a judge for not reviewing citations. So there are firms that are currently using it and not like low level firms. These are firms that you, you would be shocked, right? They are using ChatGPT in a replacement of critical thinking of an attorney. That simply is not something you can do. You will be disbarred now you can go to chat g p t for ideas. You cannot believe any case law.

You've gotta cite it. You've gotta, you've gotta go back and check all of your sites, okay? Do not rely on it for that at all. And I was reading a story recently that a lawyer was just doing something for fun. He was just typing in something like tell me three funny stories from New Year's Eve, um, that have been cited in case law and ChatGPT literally made up stories and made up citations to answer that question. It will give you unreliable information. So just be cautious of that. It's a fun tool, it is a fun thing to brainstorm with, but it will give you unreliable information at times.

Do NOT Rely on ChatGPT to Generate Briefs

The second problem I see with ChatGPT is that you still need to put your attorney hat on. And something that can be concerning is hearing about these law firms that are not putting their attorney hat on and instead are relying upon ChatGPT generated briefs.

I was frankly kind of shocked when I read that, but the fact that it is happening is something you need to be aware of. So that could be when you receive an opposing counsel brief, you need to go in and check those sites because firms are using ChatGPT unreliably, you've got to check everything.

Assume Opposing Counsel Could Be Using ChatGPT to Generate Briefs

ChatGPT can brainstorm ideas, but you cannot rely on it to give you every angle of your opposing counsel's case and know all of the case law. You can't just put copy and paste something into ChatGPT and ask for it to find, you know, case, the case law issues. Like you can't do that. What you can do with some legal tech involving chat, G P T is more advanced. I'm not talking about that here. You can go to different providers, you can Google all these different providers who are, who are offering this service for a fee and you can learn about that.

ChatGPT is totally free. But it does not give you legal analysis.

You Will Need to Educate Your Clients About the Limitations of ChatGPT

Another problem I can foresee with ChatGPT is that you may need to start educating your clients in your marketing or in consults. As people become more familiar with this technology, they may think they don't need an attorney, so you may need to educate them about its limitations. For example, you might have a 55 year old man who's thinking about creating an estate plan or a will and he's just like, okay, uh, chat g p t, this is a thing. Let me, let me type this in. Um, I'm 55 years old, I have three daughters. I have x, y, z assets and I'd like a will. Please write out a will for me. It will type something out for him. Whether or not it is complete is something that he's not gonna know.

You are gonna have to start educating people in the future about why there are legal implications and limitations to this technology and why they need a lawyer in order to satisfy the legal propriety <laugh> of that document.

Problems with Using ChatGPT in Your Law Practice When it Comes to Formal Documents and Legal Briefs

And then I went to ChatGPT and I asked ChatGPT to tell me all the problems that using ChatGPT for formal documents and legal briefs can give us. And so here are, here are the problems with using it, lack of legal expertise, limited access to legal databases, inconsistent or contradictory information, lack of context awareness potential or bias for biased or inappropriate content and legal liability and ethical concerns, which I think I've talked about all of those here. But I really wanna stress that this technology is not something you can rely upon in your legal practice for creating legal documents without your brain's input.

It is important. You are important. So make sure that you are protecting yourself and not using ChatGPT as a replacement for, um, actual legal research or doing things that require filings with the court because you are gonna be held responsible for those. You're gonna be held liable for those everything that comes outta your mouth, right? Even if you copy and paste it from ChatGPT and you put it in a document, it's gonna be like you wrote it and it, and the court's gonna treat it like you wrote it. So be very careful about what you decide you want to use from ChatGPT.

Again, great brainstorming tool, not fabulous for legal representation.

Strategy Plus Mindset

Let's talk about using some strategy with the mindset, because I'm all about mindset, but I also love strategies. So when I get to share these kinds of strategies with you, it's super fun for me because it will make your life easier if you use it in the way that I'm talking to you about.

And if you want the mindset in conjunction with the strategy, book a strategy session with me, you can go to dinacataldo.com/strategysession. And in our session we talk about how you can take the leap from where you are now to where you want to be, whether it is to build your business, whether it is to expand your business, to include no new employees, whether it is to really start mastering time management so you can be more efficient, be more productive, and start putting more of you in your life.

Those are things that we talk about in our strategy session. And I start to really weed out by talking to you what are the main concepts, the main blocks that I am seeing that are preventing you from moving from where you are now to where you want to be. And I share those with you.

There's usually about three to five that I pull out and I give them to you as a great starting point for you. Just like ChatGPT is a great starting point for people who are just brainstorming, this is a great place for you to start understanding where your work is, what it is you need to do next in order to see the difference that you want in your life.

And once you have those three to five areas of your life that you can focus on, things become easier. So if you want to work with me, if you want to learn more about yourself, book a call with me. All right my friend. I hope this episode was as fun for you as it was for me. I will talk to you soon. Bye.